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PORTRAITS 



OF 



PATRICK HENRY 

BY 
CHARLES HENRY HART 



Remarks before The Numismatic and Antiquarian 

Society of Philadelphia 

April 17th, iQi I 



Phii.auelphia 
reprinted from proceedings 

1913 




Fig. 32. Patrick Henry, from original mini- 
ature on ivory, painted by Lawrence 
Sully, 1795, in possession of Gilbert S. 
Parker, Esq., Phila. 



PORTRAITS 



OF 



PATRICK HENRY 

BY 

CHARLES HENRY HART 



Remarks before The Numismatic and Antiquarian 

Society of Philadelphia 

April 17th, 191 1 



Philadelphia 
reprinted from proceedings 

1913 






Gift 

MAY 6 Itt) 



THE MINIATURE AND PORTRAITS OF PATRICK 

HENRY. 

By Charles Henry Hart. 

(Remarks made at the Meeting of the Society, April ly, iQii.) 

It may be of interest to the gentlemen present to hear some 
account of this miniature exhibited by Mr. Parker (Fig. 32), as 
also of the Thomas Sully portrait of Patrick Henry. It was 
purchased by Mr. Parker in this city at the sale of December 10, 
1910, where Mr. Hamilton obtained the interesting memorials of 
Hemy that he has exhibited to-night, but the miniature was not 
a part of the "Henry Collection" and its greab iconographic 
importance is that until its appearance there was no authentic 
original life portrait of Henry known. 

In 1875-76, I was associated with the commission for the 
restoration of the old State House or Independence Hall and for 
the formation of a National Museum therein, and it was deemed 
very desirable to obtain for the gallery of historical portraits in 
the museum one of Patrick Henry. To this end our energies were 
bent, with the result that we could find no authentic portrait 
of him, the commonly accepted one having been painted by 
Thomas Sully in 1815, or sixteen years after Henry's death. This 
posthumous portrait was made from a portrait of Captain James 
Cook, the circumnavigator, by Nathaniel Dance (Fig. 33), to 
which portrait Henry bore such a strong resemblance that it was 
given to Sully for his base and guide for the portrait he was engaged 
to make of Henry, modified by suggestions from persons who 
had known the Virginian orator in life. It was painted by Sully 
for the purpose of being engraved as the frontispiece to William 
Wirt's "Life of Patrick Henry," published in 1817, and it was so 
engraved by William S. Lency and published by James Webster. 
(Figs. 34 and 35.) 

My authority for the genesis of this Sully portrait of Patrick 
Henry was his grandson, the Hon. William Wirt Henry, of Rich- 
mond, who a quarter of a centiu-y later published the life and 
writings of his grandfather, but who, in the lapse of twenty-five 
years underwent, for some unexplained reason, a change of heart 

(1) 



on the subject from what he previously had, as will appear from 
his statement on p. 651 of Vol. 2 of his biography. He writes 
regarding the Sully portrait of Patrick Henry: 

"The author received the following information from his 
father John Henry, the youngest son of Patrick Henry, in regard 
to the Sully portrait, from which the etching in the first volume 
has been made. During the trial of the British Debt cause in the 
United States coiu-t at Richmond, a French artist attended and 
painted a miniature of Patrick Henry, representing him as speak- 
ing. The artist presented the miniatiu'e, set in gold, to Mr. 
Henry, who afterwards gave it to the wife of his half-brother, 
Mrs. John Syme. While Mr. Wirt was preparing his life of Patrick 
Henry, he was allowed by the Flemings, descendants of Col. 
Syme, to have a portrait painted by Thomas Sully, of Philadelphia, 
from the miniature. The artist copied the miniature with some 
slight alterations as to the wig, suggested by Chief Justice Marshall. 
The portrait when completed was intrusted to Mr. James Webster, 
the publisher of Mr. Wirt's life of Henr}^ in order that it might be 
engraved for the forthcoming volume. Afterwards Mr. Wirt 
while Attorney General of the United States presented the por- 
trait to John Henry, who was living at Red Hill with his mother. 
He was too young when his father died to have remiembered him, 
but his mother and older brother and sisters pronounced it the 
best likeness they ever saw of Patrick Henry. John Henr}^ gave 
this portrait at his death to the author." 

I knew Mr. William Wirt Henry personally. He was one of 
the orators at the centennial celebration held in Independence 
Hall on July 2, 1876, in commemoration of the introduction into 
Congress of the "Resolutions respecting Independancy," when a 
congress of authors convened, each one bringing a biographical 
.sketch of a revolutionary v/orthy, and as the sequel will show the 
history he gave shortly prior to this occasion of the Sully portrait 
of Patrick Henry was the correct one and the story he subsequently 
remembered having been told by his father an apocryphal one. 
This is made clear and emphatic by the production of the original 
miniature that belonged to the Syme-Fleming family and compar- 
ing it with the Sully painting and the latter again with an engra\dng 
of Dance's portrait of Captain Cook. 

My investigation of the portraits of Patrick Henry rested 
until 1904, when I was engaged in selecting and editing the 
two hundred illustrations for the five volume edition of 




Fig. 34. Patrick Henry, painted by Thomas Sully, in possession of Charles 
L. Hamilton, Esq., Phila. 




^ 



Elson's "History of the United States," published by the 
Macmillan Company, where a portrait of Henry would have 
been a very desirable addition, and as in the intervening years 
since the Centennial a rumor had gotten abroad that there 
was a miniature of Henry in existence in Virginia I made an 
earnest hunt to discover it. I knew that, circa 1833, E. Wellmore 
had engraved for the "National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished 
Americans," issued by Longacre and Herring in this city, a 
portrait of Patrick Henry "from a painting by J. B. Longacre 
after an original miniature in possession of John S. Fleming, Esqr., 
of Virginia." With this knowledge I wrote to every Fleming in 
Virginia whose name and address I could obtain as well as ha\4ng 
my quest noted in the Richmond newspapers, but all without 
avail, so that Henry's portrait does not appear in Elson's history. 
Subsequently Mr. George Morgan, of this city, who wrote "The 
True Patrick Henry," became interested in the search and by the 
aid of Miss Gilberta S. Whittle, a literary woman in Richmond, 
who had been of assistance to Mr. Morgan in the preparation of 
his book, the miniature shown this evening by Mr. Parker was 
found in the possession of John S. Fleming, Professor of Mathe- 
matics in the Virginia Mechanics Institute, Richmond, Va., who 
had kept it not only sacredly but secretly for fear some one might 
copy it. This was after the sale of "The Henr}^ Collection" 
had been announced to take place on December 10, 1910, of 
which Mr. Fleming was informed, and on the 29th of November 
the miniature was sent by special messenger from Richmond to 
Mr. Morgan, who placed it in the hands of Stan V. Henkels, the 
well known auctioneer, who was to hold the Henry sale, to be 
sold with that collection. It was just in time to be placed in the 
catalogue which was in proof, so that it appears under "410 A," 
the "A" showing that it was an insert after the catalogue had 
been prepared, "410" being the Sully portrait of Henry. The 
catalogue states : ' ' This is the original much-sought-after miniature 
of Patrick Henry, taken from life by a French. artist at the time 
the great patriot was arguing the British Debt cases in the United 
States Court at Richmond, Virginia; it depicts him addressing 
the court, and from this miniature Thos. Sully painted the oil 
portrait (above described) for Wm. Wirt, his biographer." 

At Mr. Parker's request I examined the miniature and at 
once recognized it as the work of Lawrence Sully (1769-1803), 
eldest brother of Thomas Sully (1783-1872), an ascription of 



4 

authorship that was confirmed by the magnifying glass which 
revealed the initials "L. S., " followed by the date " 1795." Thus 
was swept aside the tradition, worthless as traditions usually are, 
that the miniature was painted by a French artist when Henry 
was in court arguing the British Debt cases, which was in 1791, 
or four years before the miniature was painted and then by an 
English artist and not by a French one. 

The question has been put: "How do you know that this 
miniature is a portrait of Patrick Henry?" It is a pertinent 
question and can readily be answered. It can be shown in two 
ways : first by the engraving by Wellmore to which I have referred, 
published seventy-seven j^ears ago, and second by its clear and 
undoubted pedigree. 

Patrick Henry's mother was the widow of John Syme, with 
one son named for his father, when she married Colonel John 
Henry, and their son Patrick was born May 29, 1738. John 
Syme, Jr., Patrick Henry's half-brother, was a man of con- 
siderable local prominence. He was Chairman of the Hanover 
County Committee in March, 1776; a member, along with 
Patrick Henry, of the Virginia Convention of May 6, 1776, and 
Sheriff of Hanover in 1790. He was very active during the 
Yorktown campaign, being Commissary with special charge of 
keeping the roads in order and had too the guarding of prisoners 
from Yorktown to Winchester, with power to take paroles and 
open letters of the prisoners. He was twice married, his first 
wife being Mildred Meriweather, of the well-known Virginian 
family of that name, and his second wife was Sarah, daughter of 
Adam and Elizabeth Hoops, of Philadelphia, her marriage license 
being issued March 17, 1768. The issue of his last marriage was 
one daughter named for her grandmother, Elizabeth, to whom 
her grandfather Hoops bequeathed by his will, in 1771, a legacy 
of £557,17,1.1 Elizabeth Syme married in 1786 George Frederick 
Augustus Fleming, and of their eleven children a son bom in 
1791 was named for his grandfather John Syme Fleming. Patrick 
Henry was much attached to his half-brother John Syme and gave 
this miniature by Lawrence Sully to his sister-in-law, Mrs. Sarah 
[Hoops] Syme, which she in turn gave to her grandson John Syme 



1 Adam Hoops' personal estate was appraised at £42,079,12, ^, a no 
inconsiderable fortune in those days, and he was besides a large landed pro- 
prietor. 




Fig. 33. 



Note. — The written endorsement by Chief Justice John 
Marshall and others that the Sully painting of Henry is "a good 
likeness" is nothing more than a confirmation of the fact that 
Patrick Henry resembled the Dance portrait of Captain James 
Cook. This "endorsement" was unknown to me until after this 
monograph was in print. 

C. H. H. 



Fleming, who bore the name of her husband, the half-brother of 
Patrick Henry, and from him it descended on his death, in 1858, 
to his son John Syme Fleming, its recent owner, so that its history 
and pedigree are perfect. John Syine Fleming the elder was a 
distinguished lawyer in Virginia and a man of the first consequence, 
while his son of the same name holds the chair of Mathematics 
in the Virginia Mechanics Institute in Richmond, so that the 
miniature has not been in the ownership of unknown persons, 
but always in the possession of persons of consideration in their 
community, which is a most important element in the pedigree 
of portraits and other objects of vertu. The absurdity of Mr. 
William Wirt Henry's statement, followed by the auctioneer, 
that Sully copied this miniature, with some slight alterations as 
to the wig, must be manifest to any one comparing the two 
portraits or, more correctly, the portrait and the picture, for a 
painting of a man, while it ma}^ be an effigy of that man, cannot be 
a portrait unless it is from life or directly copied from a life por- 
trait. These two are wholly unlike, being entirely different faces. 
The painting by Thomas Sully depicts a much younger man than 
the miniature by Lawrence Sully; the pose, features and expres- 
sion are wholly different and the ensemble is so strikingly like 
Dance's portrait of Captain Cook that assurance is given of the 
correctness of the story that this is what Sully copied with some 
changes suggested by Henry's contemporaries. If Thomas Sully 
ever saw the miniature painted by his elder brother he could 
have used it, if at all, only for some of the details of dress, such as 
the color of the gown, both being red, but in the miniature it is 
Vermillion, while in the oil portrait it is a much darker shade. Was 
the Sully oil portrait, however, as exact a copy of the miniature 
as the most accomplished artist cotdd make in the days of long 
ago without the assistance of the camera for making the enlarge- 
ment, it could never be anything but a copy, while the ivory 
miniature remains the only known original portrait of Patrick 
Henry painted from life, when the artist and the sitter faced each 
other, a priceless historical treasure. 



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